Hello, Dolly! in Vegas question

That's certainly the cast that Grable toured with. I thought Dorothy Lamour headlined the first Vegas cast alternating shows with someone like Eve Arden. I read an autobiography..I THINK it was Arden's...where she said Lamour refused to speak to her for the entire run because Arden chose to take the 8p.m. dinner shows leaving Lamour to do the midnight performances. Perhaps your programme is from around 66/67?

Could be that the tour played Vegas after the Lamour/Arden company closed.

I remember reading the Dorothy Lamour autobiography and, I may be wrong here, but I thought she alternated with Betty Grable. Her big beef (Lamour ) was that Grable, or whoever she alternated with
monopolised the rehearsal schedule leaving Dorothy Lamour very little time to rehearse.

Where is our resident HELLO, DOLLY! expert Dollypop?

I can't speak for the Vegas production, but Betty Grable headed the Broadway company of HELLO, DOLLY! from June to November of 1967 when the Pearl Bailey company moved into the St. James theatre.

Sometime that summer I saw the show from the last row of the orchestra (which was Row N, at the time - but perhaps they've managed to squeeze in extra rows since then). From that vantage point she looked beautiful with her blonde bangs. Every Dolly brought their own special talents/personality to the part, and I recall that at one point during the title number, Ms. Grable headed for the runway at the front of the stage and hiked up the skirt on the "red dress" to reveal those famous Grable gams - and then did a few kicks.

I also recall waiting at the stage door to see her after the show. She was almost at the door to her limo before I realized that the gray haired lady passing me had been wearing a blonde wig for the show.

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Thanks, Dollypop, you've sold the mystery. This was on the Danny Lockin website:

"After the show closed in San Francisco the show moved to Fresno, California for one week, then on to the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, where they were to do 14 performances a week of the show, in a 90 minuted scaled down version of the show, and no days off. Ginger Rogers refused to do that many shows with no time off, forcing Producer David Merrick to hire Dorothy Lamour to share the part of DOLLY with Ginger, with each lady doing seven shows a week. However, the rest of the cast, including Danny, played all 14 shows a week with no days off."

So it was Rogers & Lamour who alternated in the first Las Vegas company and the Grable cast must have paid a return visit.

Updated On: 2/21/11 at 01:35 AM